


The Girl-That-Was

by Snow



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Myth/Legend, Community: au_bingo, Future Fic, Gen, not entirely accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-30
Updated: 2010-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how River Tam saved the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl-That-Was

**Author's Note:**

> This is written a bit like the future myth of River Tam, which is to say that not all details are historically accurate.

Once upon a time the sun shone down on half-finished worlds, and once upon a time the only freedom there was could be found in the voyage between the moons. It was a darker time: the government had been corrupt for so long that the citizens had forgotten what corruption even meant. For darkness must be defined by its light, and without light the darkness is just another fact of life.

In that kind of atmosphere, though, the smallest candle can light a torch that will shine for miles.

The name of this candle was River Tam.

She was just a girl, no more than twelve, when the Alliance soldiers took her from her home. They should have known better than to leave her family members alive.

For the Tams were a strong and proud family, and after River's parents perished in their attempts to rescue her, the brother, Simon, still persevered. Left without the financial support and respectability that the Tam name had once meant, when Simon broke River out he took her aboard the ship of the brave Captain Reynolds, formerly of the planet that had been Shadow. Captain Reynolds had seen the light the last time it came around, when he fought with the Browncoats against the Alliance, and he still remembered what that kind of hope looked like.

Captain Reynolds took the Tam siblings on board his ship, and protected them like the parents they had lost. As knowledgeable as he was about the wicked ways of the Alliance, Captain Reynolds was able to keep Simon and River safe as they adjusted to live without the luxuries they had once known.

Time passed, and River and Simon got used to the Black. They fought Reavers and Alliance soldiers, engaged in battles of wits with con artists and entire villages, until River recalled a planet known as Miranda.

Shadow had been lost but remembered, kept as a lesson for those who would consider defying the Alliance. Miranda was just lost.

River's recollection of it opened a floodgate of memory, and the broadcast of what had happened on Miranda shocked and appalled even the people who had always trusted in the Alliance.

The Alliance sought to contain the damage, first by attempting to contain River herself, then by containing the Reavers she had revealed to be their creation. They failed at their first goal spectacularly, and the second went even worse.

River was amazing and brilliant, but she was still a teenage girl, with a teenager's ability to never give up on an argument. Her persistence and devotion to the truth turned the Alliance man sent after her against his masters.

As for the Reavers, they were no longer a controllable variable. They had been too wild for too long. The Alliance attempted to put them down, and ended up decimating their own battle fleet. Left crippled and unable to defend themselves, the Alliance was defeated by a resurgence of those who had been the Browncoats, now swelled in both numbers and moral certainty.

The Alliance crumbled and fell apart, leaving in its stead independent planets that made their own light and cared for the people on them. Trade between the worlds increased without the meddling of the Alliance, and life improved.


End file.
